A handful of cities have replaced Flock with Axon

> Axon, simply, does not have a national network. Meaning that it would not be possible for cops in one jurisdiction to search cameras across the country. [...] Police departments using Axon can enter into data sharing agreements with each other, though.

> Denver, just like the City of Ferndale, explicitly mentioned this lack of this national network as part of its decision to ditch Flock for Axon.

This (probably alongside all the bad press Flock has gotten) appears to be the crux of the switching. Ultimately, the tech actually being deployed seems similar.

Also interesting:

Comment by wolfi1 12 hours ago

it took Last Week Tonight years to get these records in one particular case

Comment by Barbing 12 hours ago

Probably this from 3d ago: https://youtube.com/watch?v=lnBPhelCdWE

Generally, silly jokes but a very serious research and fact checking team.

Comment by ortusdux 12 hours ago

Also one heck of a legal team.

Comment by chaps 12 hours ago

For those interested in FOIA lawsuits, there are many, many attorneys out there who'd love to take on a pro bono FOIA case. Lots of it is quite boiler plate and pushing back on arguments that the courts decided on years prior.

Comment by FireBeyond 12 hours ago

How long before Axon turns data sharing "opt out"?

As someone else says, "in theory". Also of note, their "Transparency Portal" is... not. I know of at least three agencies in my County who are using Flock who are not listed on the Transparency Portal...

Comment by pphysch 12 hours ago

This is a step in the right direction. Everyone hates public surveillance until they become the victim of a crime, but it's critical that the surveillance is owned and controlled fully on an appropriate level.

You should fully own and control your home security cameras. Right now many homeowners are shipping their data to national datacenters.

Municipalities should fully own and control their public security cameras, on municipal datacenter resources.

Data sharing / federation should always be intentional and time-bound. It should be impossible for a small town cop to unilaterally access security records from a random city he has no jurisdiction in.

Comment by dghlsakjg 11 hours ago

I don’t know if people hate public surveillance. Most people handle it fine when it’s traffic cameras, security cameras in malls and stores, etc.

The issue is a massive unaccountable dragnet that is prone to abuse and mistakes being treated as infallible by less than competent police.

People really don’t care if the local PD puts up cameras at an intersection with high accident rates, or a street with high crime rates. The issue is automated proactive alerts on incorrect license plates, tracking, nationwide data sharing, lack of judicial oversight, data in private databases, etc.

Comment by gilthelander 12 hours ago

> You should fully own and control your home security cameras. Right now many homeowners are shipping their data to national datacenters.

In practice it's difficult to do and offer remote access.

Comment by asteroidburger 12 hours ago

It’s not a technical limitation. Nobody sees the need to build it that way though.

Comment by dghlsakjg 11 hours ago

Not at all.

If they can get the data to their server to store it, they could just as easily not do that and instead serve it from your local device by proxy through their server.

It’s t he exact same difficulty as what they are already doing. Arguably easier since you don’t have to manage file storage in the cloud.

Comment by gilthelander 8 hours ago

[flagged]

Comment by tomhow 6 hours ago

Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

Comment by dghlsakjg 7 hours ago

Do you think they use magic to stream live video with today’s implementation? It already works. We stream HD video out of our homes all day every day, and that includes video from security cameras.

If the devices can stream live video, and they all can, then they can stream stored video.

As to why they would do that? Online storage costs money. Some users are not comfortable having their videos stored with Amazon. Plenty of good reasons.

This isn’t some lunatic idea, local storage is literally how ALL security cameras used to work, and there are products that do exactly this. They have good reviews too.

Comment by nullsanity 11 hours ago

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Comment by gilthelander 12 hours ago

[flagged]

Comment by zeeveener 12 hours ago

It forces a paper trail of warrants and other "official" pathways that we would normally consider proper policing.

If another district wants to ask a question, they have to follow the appropriate chain of command and use the correct tools.

Flock appears to have been a way for them to work around all of that and just answer any question they had willy-nilly.

Comment by dave78 12 hours ago

Vendor doesn't matter. The same issues will exist. Public safety is all about aggregating data to "operationalize" it now, so all vendors will be collecting data and sharing it with all customers just like Flock. The only benefit is that for the moment, other vendors' networks are small compared to Flock.

Comment by cyanydeez 12 hours ago

republicans got their government small enough that business and religion can drown it.

Comment by dave78 12 hours ago

Flock cameras are everywhere all over my very blue area in a blue state with new ones appearing every day. I really don't think this is a Republican/Democrat issue.

And I think as people are learning about it, they are outraged across the political spectrum; perhaps we should capitalized on that instead of trying to turn it into a red/blue thing.

Comment by cyanydeez 11 hours ago

Oh I'm aware of the unmitigated disaster that is the fight between corporate 1 and corporate 2. One sees people as customers and the other sees them as cattle.

Comment by nullsanity 10 hours ago

[dead]

Comment by ihsw 12 hours ago

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Comment by xkcd-sucks 12 hours ago

> One reason why journalists, activists, and residents have been able to learn so much about what police use Flock for is that the company has built auditing tools that the public can access through records requests. ... It is not clear if the same granularity of data can be learned about Axon systems, although it does allow agencies to generate audit reports.

> Axon’s documentation for its ALPR product, a “shared data” option “extends the query to partner-agency detections once a sharing relationship is active.”

Axon develops a data marketplace to streamline so-called lawful sharing of data, or acquires it via Flock and rebrands the network name. Audit capabilities are removed to streamline operational efficiency and reduce political risk. The public is no better off than before.

Comment by neura 12 hours ago

Worse off, if anything.

Comment by mirmor23 12 hours ago

> Axon, for example, advertises AI-powered cameras that attach to an existing streetlamp and are designed to completely blend in with their surroundings, and also collects license plate data with cameras installed inside police officers’ patrol vehicles

If anything this will make it go from bad to worse along all axes -- decentralized sharing, making it harder to track data request/usage, hide surveillance in an infrastructure that is considered essential, and host of other things..

Comment by inigyou 12 hours ago

Axon is also known as Taser, the company that popularised these sometimes-lethal weapons but promises they are completely safe and never lethal, and now supplies most of America's electronic police equipment.

Comment by 12 hours ago

Comment by RobotToaster 12 hours ago

Out of the frying pan...

Comment by SoftTalker 12 hours ago

Prediction: Flock acquires Axon.

Comment by advisedwang 12 hours ago

Axon is a public company with market cap of $50B. It is an incumbent with a huge business in bodycams and tasers with a huge number of US police departments. Flock has a $7.5B valuation at it's last funding round, and is the new comer.

More likely for Axon to acquire flock than the other way around.

Comment by yieldcrv 12 hours ago

half cash, half stock

Comment by cdrnsf 12 hours ago

Soon: Flock branded tasers.

Comment by andrei_says_ 12 hours ago

Even better: see Wim Wenders’ The End of Violence.

Comment by tamimio 12 hours ago

PTZ tasers!

Comment by eth0up 12 hours ago

Prediction: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49053193

Axon just replaces Flock in some places. But I forgot to say that it probably doesn't matter much, and that whatever anyone resents about the whole thing, will just get worse.

Comment by Cider9986 12 hours ago

These are literally city councils in many places. They're not our overlords.

Comment by eth0up 12 hours ago

That's fine too. I didn't intend to create a point of dispute. That's just my writing style which lends itself to selective interpretation. Understood.

The masses, or 'other' population, whoever it is that protests this variety of surveillance; the angry minority/ineffectual-majority, the misguided few/many that don't embrace the panopticon, etc. Regardless, it's not going away. From here onward, whatever form of surveillance or control it is, it's not going away. Eternal whackamole, eternal malcontent, we can hate it and spray-paint it all we want, but the only means to stop it is the one most people are either not capable of, or do not believe they are capable of, and it does not involve vandalism, feeble expressions of frothing contempt or anything but serious organized and unfortunately, legal methodology. Everything else is mostly symbolic, in a time when public opinion is less valuable than ever, and symbols offer little more than forensic evidence and fuel for long-term counter strategy.

Flock, Axon, ARGUS-IS, Xfinity CSI multi-AP WiFi sensing fusion, evil smartphones -- it's all here to stay, and evolve, and get pushed in our lives.

Might is Right. However terribly wrong it might be. And might is especially right when society divests from the primary tool capable of making it wrong. And I think, largely, that is what we've done. A city council is a minority. Whether it represents the majority, is, I think, not always consistent.

Comment by echelon 12 hours ago

They're a public company with a $50B market cap. That's not going to happen.

The direction would be the other way around. Axon is showing that they want the market, that they can build the tech themselves, and that they can leverage their extensive existing relationships with law enforcement and municipal governments as sales channels.

Comment by mrexroad 12 hours ago

My city has a contract with Flock, but the rest of their tech “stack” is Axon based. I’ll be surprised if they don’t change ALPR to Axon at first chance.

Comment by SoftTalker 12 hours ago

In fact they are probably already using Axon ALPR in their police vehicles. That technology has existed for a while, even before Flock's fixed cameras became widespread.

I find it slightly less objectionable, as the chances that I drive by Flock's cameras every day are nearly 100% but the chances that I'm within visual range of a police car are much lower and more random.

Comment by throwawayZ151 12 hours ago

Correct directional analysis - but Axon already has competing products and is demonstrating here that they don’t need to acquire Flock to take market share. I am very doubtful of an acquisition.

Comment by josefritzishere 12 hours ago

Mass surveillance under any brand name is horrible, and would be illegal in any sane universe.